Robotic and other laparoscopic type surgical instruments have been in use for over a decade. In general, one or more small incisions are made in the patient and an operating device, such as a scope, or other instrument, is fed through the incision(s), until the surgical device(s) and/or instrument(s) reaches the site of the operation. The inserted portions of the robotic surgical instruments are typically tubular in shape. In some examples, the robotic or laparoscopic instrument is a scalpel, scissors, or other cutting device for removal or repair of diseased or malfunctioning tissue. Advances in surgical systems and surgical instruments have greatly reduced operation times as well as recovery times; such as the removal of a gallbladder, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,436 (hereafter '436) describes one method of cleaning that has effectively cleaned the interiors and exteriors of channeled tubular surgical instruments, such as orthoscopic/laparoscopic/endoscopic/and bone reamers. The '436 patent utilizes ultrasonic transducers affixed to the bottom of an ultrasonic tank that has been filled with cleaning solution, wherein the ultrasonic waves induce the separation of debris from the soiled instrument(s) placed in the ultrasonic bath. Further, in '436, the ultrasonic tank is attached to an independent suction apparatus that works simultaneously to suction out the loosened debris from the interior and tool end of a channeled tubular surgical instrument while it is being cleaned in the ultrasonic bath. More recently, this is accomplished by inserting just the distal tool end of the channeled tubular surgical instrument through a hole in the capped, individually dedicated, inline maximizing suction cleaning chamber, inline filter, inline pump, and inline fluid return tube that returns the filtered ultrasonic tank cleaning solution back to the ultrasonic bath wherein the attached channeled tubular surgical instrument is laying on the bottom of the fluid filled activated ultrasonic tank. The current configuration of the '436 can individually clean up to six channeled tubular surgical instruments at the same time using this well established cleaning system.
The combined surgical instrument cleaning methods of '436 have been used successfully in cleaning many types of flow through channeled tubular surgical instruments. However, this singular hookup method for cleaning channeled tubular surgical instruments in the '436 is incapable of adequately cleaning Robotic tubular surgical instruments, such as the da Vinci@ robotic surgical instruments manufactured by Intuitive Surgical, Inc., because one or more tight seals have been placed as a barrier between the distal tool end and the proximal shaft/control box end of the channeled areas within the robotic instrument in an effort to curtail the amount of bio burden at the tool end from migrating up into the segmented shaft/control box end; which reduces but does not totally prevent bio burden from migrating into the segmented proximal end of the robotic instrument.
The typical institutional practice for cleaning the distal tool end of a robotic surgical instrument is to scrub it by hand; which is time consuming, tedious, potentially dangerous, and can lead to liability and workman's compensation issues.
What is needed is a safer more cost effective automated way to clean both the distal and the proximal segmented areas of robotic surgical instruments.